Article Excerpt:
TWST: Would you begin with a brief overview of Superior Galleries?Mr. Di Genova: Superior Galleries is an auctioneer, dealer, and wholesaler of rare U.S. coins and other fine collectibles. The company has been around since 1930 and primarily deals in the higher end of the rare coin spectrum, although we do handle items in all price ranges. The core business, our auction business, is a very simple one. We receive merchandise, coins, from collectors, investors, estates and so on. We bring the coins in and catalog them, describe them, promote them, and then sell them at auction. We receive a commission for that service. In the second part of the business, the wholesale business, we purchase coins for our own account and market them to other wholesalers and retailers of rare coins. We also finance or advance funds against other dealers' inventory that we hold as well as resell on behalf of the dealers. The third piece, similar to wholesale, is, again, buying coins for our own account and selling them to the public. Also, in both the wholesale and retail there are situations in which we don't actually purchase the items and are just the middle-man broker, and here we basically have a transaction in hand at both ends and just make money in between.
TWST: Generally when you do trade out of your inventory, how large is
it?
Mr. Di Genova: Our inventories vary from $5 million to $7 million.
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